In case you missed it, below is a transcript of Senator Warner’s speech from last night accepting victory in the Virginia Senate race.
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Thank you Virginia.
Well it was a hard fought race. It went a little longer than we thought. But I think we know in Virginia about close races. Tim has already made mention of this. But I am so grateful for so many people. I want to start – any of us who do these and are crazy enough to sometimes go into politics. We all have great partners. And I want to thank my wife Lisa.
My three daughters couldn’t be here. They are great, they sent their love and they also sent their absentees.
And I want to congratulate also Ed Gillespie. He ran a hard fought campaign. I’ve known what its meant to come up a little bit short against a Warner a few years back. But I wish him and I wish his family well. I know he will stay involved in Virginia and national politics. So give it up for Ed Gillespie.
You know the thing that we are seeing all across the country is that people are tried of politics as usual. They recognize and why I think we were successful tonight is that at the end of the day they want to hire folks to go to Washington that can work across party lines and that can actually put the people’s business first. And you have given me that chance to go back and continue that fight!
Now there’s a lot of people to thank. I am going to make this speech a little bit shorter. I wanted to call out one individual, one great Virginian, who I had the honor now of taking his position. He served for 30 years. That was John Warner. Who I am proud of a lot of endorsements. But the fact that somebody I actually ran against, remember the old Mark not John? Now we are friends. Now it is Mark and John and I am grateful for his service to our country and am grateful for him campaigning around Virginia for us.
The lessons whether it is here in Virginia or anywhere around the country – the people of America want us to move past sound bites. They want us to move past political bickering. They want us to get out of our political gridlock. And they want us to make sure to get the job done for you and actually govern.
The commitment I make to you is that I will go back to Washington and recognize that we have got to find that common ground. I know most of us here are Democrats but neither political party has the monopoly on truth, or virtue or patriotism. And in this new Senate I will work with anyone Democrat, Republican, Independent, you name, if we are going to make sure that we can get our country’s problems fixed.
That is going to require us to pass a budget so that we do not go back to the stupidity of sequestration. To pass a transportation bill so we can fix our roads, and bridges and infrastructure.
To make sure that we reform our tax code to actually incent companies to bring their jobs back home rather sending them abroad. To make sure that young people are not crushed by student debt.
And yes. I am going to suit up one more time for whatever group, gang, cabal, or whatever it takes to make sure we get our nation’s balance sheet fixed and don’t leave the next generation with $17 trillion in debt. We can do this together, Americans.
Now there are a lot of folks tonight who didn’t make it. I want to say to many of my Senate colleagues who won’t be coming back, I am going to miss them. They served our country with distinction.
I also want to say for a moment. I want to thank my team. From our campaign team who worked their hearts out – Trey and David Hallock. To Jenny and all the folks on our finance team and all of you have given so many times. To Keyanna and the political team, to Zack, who has been the best body guy I could ever imagine.
And most importantly for all of you. Many of us in this room go back 20 years plus, back to my time in business back to our times where we said we could bring a new and different kind of politics to Virginia. We still have work in front of us. I promise I come out of tonight’s election energized, fired up and ready to go.
Let’s make sure we get our country headed back in the right direction.
Thank you. God bless you Virginia and god bless the United States. Thank you all!